Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

I'm failing to understand the issue here. Anything ICANN does is essentially public. Any changes to domain IP addresses have to propagate out to everyone, so it's not like they could cause traffic to be arbitrarily rerouted, etc. Sounds like just another straw man attempt to get the ICANN out of the US.

Worse than that. A lot of countries outside the US would likely use ICANN to restrict content. China might want to restrict websites which talk about all sorts of things. European countries would want to restrict hate speech and Holocaust denial. Islamic countries would want to restrict blasphemous websites. Etc. For all the many faults of the US, ICANN is one thing that must stay in US hands if we value free speech.

Worse than that. A lot of countries outside the US would likely use ICANN to restrict content. China might want to restrict websites which talk about all sorts of things. European countries would want to restrict hate speech and Holocaust denial. Islamic countries would want to restrict blasphemous websites. Etc. For all the many faults of the US, ICANN is one thing that must stay in US hands if we value free speech.

DNS filtering is already happening... there are pros and cons, it'll never be standardized or required by international law.

An no, don't tell me to trust the US to safe guard free speech... You openly violate human right, torture and spy illegally on millions of people on a unprecedented scale. (Don't tell me spying is legal, it's a clear violation human rights convention). Oh, and skip the arguments, that the human rights convention shouldn't be honored, I don't even want to hear it.

To be completely fair, the European countries were only weak because we invented all the new and exciting ways to crush each other back into the stone age and then just HAD to try them out, with predictably debilitating results. Russia was awfully lucky that we were all more interested in fighting each other. Imagine if the UK had said 'Well, bad luck France and Belgium, Fritz won fair and square' and then we all sat back in our deck chairs and watched. You'd have had no one to invite you to the party!

"Worse than that. A lot of countries outside the US would likely use ICANN to restrict content."

So what would change? The US already does this. The ICE domain seizures of legitimate overseas businesses were only possible because ICANN is a US entity and this was worse than Chinese censorship because it was cross-border international censorship carried out unilaterally by the US. At least in an international setting the censorship would merely be local or shot down due to lack of consensus. Right now the US

Most of your points are completely valid. I agree that the censorship is going on here right now. The problem is that any movement outside the US will almost certainly make the situation worse rather than better because of the large variety of interests with different censorship goals and no serious ideological commitment to free speech.

One problem with ICANN now is that they hold the root DNSSEC keys, so anyone who controls the strings of ICANN can spoof otherwise secured DNS records (and the associated SSH/PGP/HTTPS key pinning done with said records). The NSA, for example, I'm sure would be interested in the ability to man in the middle domains that are seen as important (ones that someone bothered to sign with DNSSEC).
I'm also sure that the GCHQ is equally interested in getting their hands on said keys.

The countries that invented that particular item can go ahead and specify anything they want inside their borders. If countries outside those borders don't like it, then they can ignore it.

ICANN is no different. Don't like it? Then go make your own. Just because the internet has gained universal acceptance doesn't mean you get a say in how it's administered in the US. There is nothing saying you can't stick a bunch computers between your country and the internet

Of course you are right, but we in the US also have a vested interest in keeping the internet coherent as much as possible. Giving the EU more control might eventually be in our best interest. After all, we, too, can always separate from them if they steer in a direction that we do not like.

What I absolutely do not support is UN control. The UN is primarily there to prevent nuclear powers from going to war, and thus far it has done a fine job of that. Most of the members are shitheads with far more restrictive speech laws than the US. The EU, on the other hand, really only differs from the US in hate speech. If they could be persuaded to not enforce hate speech laws through ICANN, I don't have a problem with giving them influence.

Yes, though the US in turn seems to weigh copyright claims very heavily. In any case, my ideal for ICANN is that it not be used as a censorship tool. There should be concrete rules for proper records and settling ownership disputes, and that's about it. If a government wants to censor a site, they should refer to the proper records and act if it is within their jurisdiction.

Right, but the UK isn't the EU. In fact, the UK wants to leave the EU precisely because it's mostly populated by ignorant xenophobic pricks who still hold imperial era fantasies of what our country is so it's about as far from a typical example of an EU state as you can get. The UK actually lowers the average level of freedom, respect, and rights of the EU by quite a large amount due to a combination of it's size and it's over the top support for things like America's extraordinary rendition and other right

Most of the [UN] members are shitheads with far more restrictive speech laws than the US.

Exactly. The call for "control of the Internet" to go to the UN is really a call by some countries to outlaw anything online that they find offensive/inconvenient/annoying/etc. I can post a rant about President Obama using horrible language and even some claims that have been disproved a dozen times and I'm perfectly fine unless I make a threat on his life. In which case, expect a visit from the Secret Service as it

The thing about nice neutral countries though is they rarely fight to be put in charge of things. I would love to see, for instance, Denmark put in charge of ICANN, but they are not about to wrestle it away from the US and no one strong enough to make the US back down is going to just hand it off to a country that might be responsible with it.

Lately it seems that every government is trying to control the internet. So whoever is going to control the internet, it must not be a government or organization of governments. Or a commercial corporation. I vote for a non-profit organization consisting of different people from different countries who understand technology. This is basically what ICANN is, but without the US Government controlling it. Let's move ICANN's office from California to Switzerland or something.

I don't, mainly because I'm pretty sure everyone else is doing it to. It sucks, but the idea that the NSA alone is spying on everything is BS. We know the Germans, French and Chinese are doing it, and I suspect the only countries that are not are countries that don't have the financial capacity to do so.

If countries outside those borders don't like it, then they can ignore it.

Be careful what you wish for. There seems to be an increasing sentiment almost everywhere that the US is getting far too big for its boots and it is in the best interests of other nations to distance themselves and reduce their dependence on US-controlled interests.

To that end, it is certainly technically possible for an alternative internet to be developed that is independent of the US, and for all of the essential infrastructure to be distributed globally. In fact, for many reasons starting over and fixin

What does it have to do with exceptionalism? This is like when people biatch at a developer to make a change for them because they don't like the developers decisions. I'm sorry, but it's the developer's software.

Which is why you maintain control of the Oxford English Dictionary. When we became America we didn't like it, so Daniel Webster made our own Americanized dictionary, instead of trying to insert our opinions/culture into your dictionary. You're free to do the same with whatever shitty network you have inside your borders.

So we get that little bonus.We inveted your language. We get that little bonus.France invented your democratic process. They get that little bonus.Scotland invented the TV, they get that little bonus....

"On March 25, 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion, at Selfridge's Department Store in London.[7] AT&T's Bell Telephone La

There is a technical reason for that. The same reason for the area code 212. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]:
To save time for its operators given the rotary dialing technology of the time, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator and Bell System tried to keep the number of "clicks" to a minimum for larger cities.

Actually the 'US' country code is a weird one that covers a dozen-odd countries (all in North America). Canada being the other large one, but the NANP includes many Carribean countries too (with them essentially being assigned a North American area code as their de facto country code). This is for historical reasons. You don't see this occurring many other places - in all other regions, countries generally have distinct country codes. Two digits at a minimum, some three. Russia is the only exception I can t

Making the initial roads is not the same as making the cars that go in it or owning the people that drive them, the content is what makes internet special, and it was made by every internet user, including you with your comment. Inventing the "a" letter don't make you owner/author of every book ever written.

Were those who awarded him the title aware of the Zuse Z3 (it's two items above the ABC item on the page whose URL you cited [computerhistory.org] (note: HTML, despite being a British rather than an all-American invention, isn't that hard to use, and if you use it when posting to/., URLs automatically get turned into links you can click)? It, unlike the ABC, was programmable, although it wasn't stored-program (it was programmed with punched tape) and didn't have, for example, conditional branches.

"The standards are open for anyone to make their own [nation]net. With that in mind, it sure looks like everyone is leeching off the US-net and then whining that it isn't being twisted to their favored totalitarianisms and oppressions.

We have a special salute prepared for this kind of demand, and 90% of our citizens practice it regularly."

Precisely. There is nothing -- absolutely and literally nothing -- preventing any country from operating its own "intranet" and connecting or not connecting to the one operated by ICANN or not, as they please. Like China, for instance.

In fact, I am in favor of this approach. Set up one, big, international, NEUTRAL hub. (Which is basically what ICANN is, but whatever. Some people don't like the arrangment.) It should NOT be government-controlled, in any sense, by anybody. The UN is definitely out. To be p

The best way to stop spying is to not let any connections to foreign websites. Whilst i'm not one for great firewalls or suchlike (and as a brit i despise David Macaroon's internet filtering policy) maybe it's time to start filtering connections from certain countries. If the EU is so worked up about America controlling the internet (which it does) maybe it's time to set up a Euronet and filter connection to and from the US. Would it help keep the internet free? No. But the internet will never be free whils

Right now, everyone is in an uproar over Net Neutrality, how (at the moment) we don't have it, and how the few big ISPs are going to ruin the Internet, turning it into another version of the Walled Gardens of the pre-Internet era. However we, once again, are just being distracted by this from the real threat: the rest of the world. We here in the U.S. need to remember: We're just a single-digit percentage of the world's total population, yet we've got (at the moment, anyway) an inordinate amount of power of

We're just a single-digit percentage of the world's total population, yet we've got (at the moment, anyway) an inordinate amount of power of the shape and direction of the Internet as a whole.

I think the power of ICANN and the US is rather greatly overstated when it comes to the internet.

I personally don't think that the U.N. is the body that should have control over the course and form of the Internet

Ok, fair enough. Who should then? I hear this all the time how people dislike the UN for various reasons that they always seem unable to articulate but honestly I can't think of any other body better positioned to play quasi-neutral arbiter. Of course politics are going to play a role - doesn't matter who ultimately is the controlling body. If you don't like the UN filling this role then who else do you prop

The UN's general assembly is a democratic body with one vote for each participating government. Most of the governments of the world are broken. Ergo the general assembly is broken.

If you think the UN really works like that you don't really understand how it works. The more powerful governments have influence over the less powerful. Furthermore relatively little [un.org] is done through the General Assembly which is just one part of the UN and not necessarily the most important part.

I don't really care if the UN or the US controls the internet. I do however suspect that the 95% of the world that is not the US will sooner or later decide to circumvent ICANN at some point if they don't change

Apparently you didn't read my entire comment because you missed shortly after that where I said that I don't know who or what should be shaping the Internet in the future.

Oh I saw it. And my question remains. If you don't like the UN (for reasons you failed to enumerate) then who else? Saying it shouldn't be the UN when you have no one else in mind is pointless. Even saying we should leave it with ICANN is some sort of an answer.

So the problem seems to be that ICANN is an american corporation, and thus subject to the laws of the US, and that in turn, could be used against foreign powers?

The solution then is to 'globalize' it? Where is it going to be 'globalized' to? Which country could it exist in where it would have immunity to any laws and act with impunity in regards to them?

When I see the complaints against it by China, Russia, the EU, and so on, they're always advocating more restrictions, protection of their interests. They want the ability to blacklist sites that talk about their politicians, that discuss unfavorable religions or religious rights, that cover alternative lifestyles such as gay or transgender, and so on. They want to do it without arbitration, automatically.

What they really are complaining about is that they don't have absolute control over it, and they want it. Everything else is just a pleasant lie or deliberate misdirection.

Let's be fair; the US has more than it's fair share of faults, but our definition of freedom is still incredibly wide reaching compared with the vast majority of countries in the world, and we're big enough to make it hard to push us around with political power alone. That's the big problem they're seeing.... besides, use of the current DNS registry system is entirely voluntary. There's nothing to stop someone from coming up with their own, like the TOR network did. If it's better, people will use it over the current one. Though, I think they realize that any replacement that is more strictly controlled will never be considered 'better', so they need to subvert the current one.

A bit of a sidetrack, but this is what most disappointed me about the whole NSA surveillance thing. We (the US) have probably the greatest ability of any country to protect freedom on the internet and be a force for free speech and expression in the world, yet our trampling of the 4th amendment is squandering that. We *claim* to bring freedom to other countries with guns and bombs, yet fail an opportunity to bring it to them with technology and computers.

When I see the complaints against it by China, Russia, the EU, and so on, they're always advocating more restrictions, protection of their interests. They want the ability to blacklist sites that talk about their politicians, that discuss unfavorable religions or religious rights, that cover alternative lifestyles such as gay or transgender, and so on. They want to do it without arbitration, automatically.

So when did the EU (as opposed to China or Russia) advocate those things and indicate that it wants those abilities?

The US "must" do this? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

I can see why the EU and/or UN would want the US to give up control over the ICANN contract, but every time this comes up, I have yet to see a single reason presented as to why the US would agree to do it.

Diplomacy involves the practical application of either the proverbial Carrot or Stick or Both. "Do this or I'll write further Official Letters demanding it" is not much of a stick, and it certainly isn't a carrot.

It's quite simple really: The US cannot prevent losing control, but they can have it happen in an orderly way and perhaps get a better position in the resulting system.

You see, it's not like there is some magical Key To the Internet which is stored in a bunker in Oregon and which you can choose to either hand over or not. It's also not something you really can defend with guns to prevent other countries from having it.

It's rather more like having control over the rules of international air traffic. If you d

Firstly, I'm not "offended" that the EU would like control of the ICANN contract. I'm simply stating diplomatic realities that simply demanding something when you offer no good reason for the other party to comply is empty grandstanding.

What, specifically, has the US Dept. of Commerce made ICANN do that it would no longer do if it's contract was turned over to another political body? What problem, specifically, with the US owning the ICANN contract are you trying to solve?

Uh, I can see reasons. Actually, I see little except reasons, because quite obviously, ICANN is utterly insane and horrible, and the insanity it displays is clearly american in spirit - the same "we know everything, go fuck yourself, our way or the highway" attitude that the USA displays to the rest of the world.

I didn't say there were no reasons that it might be nice if ICANN was not under a US contract.

What I said was that there aren't any reasons for the US to go along with this plan. No national government is in the business of giving away power to other countries simply because those other countries want it.

The stewardship the US has exercised has been far from perfect, and recent years have shown it to be even worse than previously believed. But for all that, even within the context of recent revelations, it has still proven considerably less-intolerable of a steward than any other proposal yet put forward.

For all the EU's talk of Internet freedom, most nations have moved to curtail it within their own borders, and their efforts have achieved considerably more support within their borders than the correspondi

I think you are underestimating the level of distrust there is for the US at the moment.

I don't think I am, actually. I have bent over backwards to make conciliatory gestures to the more extreme camps, pointing out at every turn that the current situation is not a good one even as I demonstrate how it remains preferable to the currently-known alternatives. I realize there is nothing I can do to satisfy the outright irrational elements out there, but where I see the possibility for reasoned discussion, I take it.

I can't really think of any entity I would trust less in the "can I trust them not to abuse this power in every way they can think of"-way (in the competence-sense, certainly).

I fail to see how internet addressing and numbering is directly related to the NSA (and GCHQ, which Neelie Kroes fails to mention) spying on individuals. Also the argument of agility seems a bit off too. Once you start adding a multitude of (governments) stakeholders to any project, things tend to slow down not become more agile.

Here's a big blast of logic for you: what country invented the majority of the internet's protocols, hardware, and design? Domain registrations really don't have a whole lot to do with spying either and that's the majority of what ICANN handles. The W3C has more of an impact on the actual internet.

We invented the internet, if it wasn't for DARPA and Al Gore, there would be no ICANN. Just like with GPS. If you don't like the US version, build your own.

Nevermind that Europe, while better on privacy rights, is far worse on freedom of speech rights. Technical measures can help with privacy but it is very hard to overcome freedom of speech restrictions with software ('m talking rights to, not the ability to. Ability means nothing if it lands you in jail or your speech is removed)

Nevermind that Europe, while better on privacy rights, is far worse on freedom of speech rights.

Not sure where you get this from, but I see this nonsense reiterated quite a bit here.I'd be perfectly fine here sitting in the middle of Germany and saying that I'd like to see Israel get bombed flat or that the Jews are inferior people. Sure, people will think I'm an asshole, but there's no law against that. There is however a law that forbids you to claim that there was not a huge number of jews killed in WW2 or that concentration camps don't exist.The French hate speech laws are of a similar nature, sol

At least they appear to get it with regard to the UN; the US will never submit control of ICANN's many responsibilities to ITU or any other UN snuggery and deserves the eternal gratitude of the entire species for that profound wisdom.

They might take ICANN's advice: And use a non-ICANN international internet naming system. ICANN would then be limited to the US's intranet, if that.

Which they'd likely have LESS control over.

Meaning their "third option" is to spend out money they don't have already and don't really want to spend to build out a naming system themselves.

This is why they're making power grabs for ICANN. The work's already done, dusted and paid for. If they can steal^H^H^H^co-opt it, they don't have to do any real work or incur any real expenses themselves.

The only reason why it's acceptable to allow ICANN to be controlled by the U.S. is because they have the strongest free speech laws. I simply don't trust other countries as much as the U.S. in that regard.